


This Story Is Not About You

by maremote



Series: Inktober Ficlets [1]
Category: It Devours, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Librarians, Life in Night Vale, M/M, Night Vale, Night Vale Community Radio, Typical Night Vale Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-24 00:31:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21329275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maremote/pseuds/maremote
Summary: It’s time to stop thinking about you now. This story isn't about you. Not everything is about you, even though you feel like it is sometimes, for example when you do something clumsy in public. Maybe if you weren’t so clumsy you wouldn’t feel so embarrassed all the time. Maybe if you were swift, like a librarian…Day 1 of the Inktober Ficlets. Prompt: Swift.
Relationships: Josh Crayton/Monty
Series: Inktober Ficlets [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1537642
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	This Story Is Not About You

**Author's Note:**

> short lil ficlet written for the inktober prompt "day 1: swift".

There are many words one could use to describe a librarian. 

Some of these words are nouns. (Monster. Creature. Beast.) Some of these words are adjectives. (Cursed. Strong. Swift.)

Some of these adjectives could also be used as adverbs. For example, swift. For example, if a librarian was moving swiftly between two library aisles, and you were trapped in the library with it, you might think,  _ the librarian moved swiftly between the aisles of Fiction (A-G) and Fiction (H-L) _ .

Then you would be ripped apart, and you would cease to exist. No one would ever know that your last act was a simple descriptive sentence using swift as an adverb to describe the movements of a librarian. 

It’s time to stop thinking about you now. This story isn't about you. Not everything is about you, even though you feel like it is sometimes, for example when you do something clumsy in public. Maybe if you weren’t so clumsy you wouldn’t feel so embarrassed all the time. Maybe if you were  _ swift,  _ like a librarian….

All right, this is getting out of hand. This story really isn’t about you. Stop thinking about yourself. Stop it. Stop it right now. 

Have you stopped?

Good. 

Now listen. 

This story is about a teenage boy. The teenage boy is named Monty. Monty is in love with a waterfall. The waterfall is named Josh. Josh is in love with Monty, and Monty knows this, because Josh’s story was read out loud on the radio. 

Monty also knows that Josh doesn’t like being a waterfall. 

Monty knows that going to the library do to research is a thing people do. Monty is in the library. Monty wants to help Josh turn back into a person. These things are all connected by a system of cause and effect. 

Monty is in the library right now. The library is dark in patches, and bright in other patches. The carpet is a pile carpet covered in lint, and Monty is crouching on it, not thinking about adverbs and adjectives, because he is busy trying to figure out a way to get past the librarian blocking the way to Nonfiction (A-G).

This story is going to switch tenses now, because even though Monty is in the library  _ right now,  _ as you are reading this, whoever you are (not that it matters, because this story isn’t about you) at some point Monty will no longer be in the present but the past, and this is as good a way as any to prepare for that. 

Besides, time is weird. 

Monty crouched in a dark patch on the lint-covered pile carpet, holding on to the edge of Fiction (G-L) and tried not to breathe too loudly. A tarantula skittered by his foot and Monty resisted the urge to reach out and grab it, just to have something to hold. Just to be in this with someone else. 

Monty was beginning to think that coming to the library might have been a bad idea, even for Josh’s sake, although the thought of leaving with nothing to help Josh made him feel like he hadn’t eaten breakfast, even though he most definitely had (Flakey-Os, as he had been gently ordered to by Tim and Trinh, the hosts in the morning show his dad liked to watch). He risked a glance at his watch and then crouched down again, trying to make himself as small as possible with as little movement as possible. 

The tarantula skittered back towards him and Monty wondered how it had escaped the librarian. Right on cue, a deafening screech made Monty tumble from his crouching squat to a position similar to the fetal position, hands clapped over ears. Even the tarantula screamed, or maybe that was the ringing in Monty’s ears. Or maybe the tarantula’s scream caused the ringing in Monty’s ears. 

Good-for-nothing tarantulas, hanging about and spinning webs instead of going to school and getting degrees in things like Music Censorship or Ceremonial Candle-Lighting or Bloodstone Craftsmanship. 

Monty wondered if the library carried books on Bloodstone Craftsmanship. He’d always thought heliotrope was a pretty gemstone. Maybe he should take it up as a hobby, to take his mind off Josh. He watched the tarantula crawl gingerly up his leg and onto his knee.

But before he could think of getting his mind off of Josh, another deafening screech took his mind off of bloodstones as three books flew across the room, landing a few feet behind Monty. Monty couldn’t see far back enough to read most of their titles, but one of them had the word  _ Transformation _ , which sounded like a promising excuse to make his exit, so Month slowly inched his way backwards, careful not to make too much noise. The pile carpet rubbing against his jeans applied an uncomfortable texture to his knees, but in the interest of  _ keeping _ his knees Monty kept going. 

The minute his fingers closed around the transformation book, a trumpeting roar ten times louder than any of the previous sounds ripped through the library, blowing book after book off the wall shelves behind Monty. Monty clapped his hands to his ears, one hand still holding the book, and metaphorically threw caution to the wind as he literally flung the tarantula off of him, briefly feeling sorry for the creature as it spun away to land in a bright patch. With deadly accuracy, a tentacle shot out from the dark void Monty could only assume the librarian was creating with his very presence and slammed into a spot millimeters off from the tarantula. The arachnid skittered wildly away, and Monty took advantage of the temporary distraction to run.

When Monty was outside of the library, in the harsh desert sunlight, he realized the back half of his t-shirt, which read  _ WE ARE ALL FROZEN PEAS AT HEART  _ in block letters and depicted a cow’s skull onto which the words  _ property of ᑢᓰᖶᖻ ᑢᓍᑘᘉᑢᓰᒪ _ were emblazoned, was badly singed.

Monty was tired. Monty was relieved. Monty sighed. These events were related. 

Monty looked down at the book he had grabbed to see if it could possibly be any help, and was dismayed to find the title read:  _ Transformational Geometry: Turn Your Teacher Into A Blade Of Grass With These 5 Simple Formulas _ . 

Monty smacked himself on the forehead. He should’ve recognized the textbook from 5th grade. Dejected, he dropped the book on the low wall encircling the library and slumped down to sit leaning against it. 

Imagine a dejected friend of yours. Yes, that’s perfect. That’s what Monty looked like. Except Monty is not your friend, because this story is not about you. This story is about Monty, sitting outside the library, thinking about Josh, and his voice, and his quietness, and how much he thought about things, to a point where a lot of people Monty knew thought Josh was sullen rather than reserved. 

Monty knew better. What he didn’t know was how to help Josh. How to change Josh back. 

Monty began to think about Josh being a waterfall. He began to think that maybe the problem wasn’t Josh being a waterfall but Josh hating being a waterfall. He began to think that maybe he didn’t know how to help Josh after all. He began to think that maybe he should have lunch now. He had, at some earlier point, eaten breakfast, but since then time had done the thing it had a habit of doing and now Monty was standing up, and looking up into the sunlight and wondering if Big Rico’s Pizza was open. 

No one did a slice like Big Rico. No one. 

Monty left the outside of the library. He left the textbook there in case anyone wanted it. He kept an eye out for waterfalls on the way to Big Rico’s, just in case. 

Monty wondered if he should become a radio intern. Then maybe Josh would hear news of him from time to time on the radio. But Monty didn’t want Josh to worry, and the mortality rate of radio internships in Night Vale was a  _ little  _ high. Monty wondered how Josh was doing. 

Monty wondered how his story would end. He wondered how Josh’s story would end. He wondered if they were in the same story. He hoped so. He wondered how their story would end. 

You are probably wondering that too. You probably want to know how all this ends. “But in the end, what happened?” you are probably asking, if not out loud then in your head. You want to know.

But this story isn’t about you. It’s about Josh and Monty. And for now they are at an impasse. 

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed, folks! that was just my first foray into the world of wtnv fanfics- my way of trying to emulate wtnv style- and i'd love feedback.


End file.
